Daily Mail

BBC’s focus on ‘diverse’ comedy is just PC panic, insists Purves

- By Susie Coen TV and Radio Reporter

LIBBY Purves has accused the BBC of ‘virtue-signalling’ as the broadcaste­r refuses to make white, male comedy in a drive to become more diverse.

The broadcaste­r lamented the corporatio­n’s ‘PC panic’, which she claims has resulted in ‘rules and fences’ being erected around what shows can and can’t be made.

Miss Purves, 68, said it has become ‘ increasing­ly fashionabl­e’ to attack ‘white, educated, straight, affluent’ men who earn £200,000 a year.

Though describing this attitude as ‘bigotry’, she maintained it could have a positive impact on diversity, the gender pay gap and racism. But she argued that there are areas where ‘pious, reverse discrimina­tion becomes plain potty’.

Writing in Radio Times, the journalist said her ‘ heart sank’ when BBC comedy boss Shane Allen said last month that Monty Python would not have been commission­ed today because the show was made up of ‘six Oxbridge white blokes’.

‘Is there any spectacle more depressing, more dad-dance and David Brent, than an artfully stubbled BBC commission­er smugly bigging up his “diversity” cred?’ Miss Purves asked.

‘Worse still when he is the controller through whom all new comedy must pass. For him the “metropolit­an, educated experience” is out, also the “male middle-aged life crisis” (hard luck Hancock and Reggie Perrin). Instead he promised “an authentic Muslim experience”, mental health issues and the allblack Famalam.’

The presenter bemoaned the way the corporatio­n is ‘building a world of rules and formulae and fences ... even around laughter’. She added: ‘I suspect the Commission­er of Comedy is just virtue-signalling in some internal PC panic.’

Miss Purves went on: ‘We all need to laugh, and the idea that we can only be made to do so by people exactly like us is just weird. For the gift of provoking laughter (the main point, even of the most barbed satire) is elusive. It follows no strict social or moral laws. Not everyone laughs at all of it, some are offended, but it has no race, tribe, gender or age.’

Miss Purves also claimed that the Pythons’ characters of ‘businessme­n, generals, bosses, doctors, silly-walkers and nudge-nudge lechers’ were all a ‘good takedown of the much-maligned “stale pale male” establishm­ent’.

Python star John Cleese reacted to Mr Allen’s comments by writing on social media: ‘Unfair! We were remarkably diverse for our time. We had three grammarsch­ool boys, one a poof, and Gilliam, though not actually black, was a Yank. And NO slave-owners.’

Miss Purves also accused Mr Allen of being inconsiste­nt, pointing out that just two years ago he launched a Landmark Sitcom Season – which included remakes of classics such as Porridge.

‘It has no race, tribe or gender’

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